NASA's Research Renders Virtual Airport Through Wearable Glasses

Pilots say that flying through fog has really been a difficult task for them especially in commercial airlines. In fact, most of the airlines’ authorities organize a quick landing when worse visual situations arise. In order to tackle such a problem, NASA took an initiative where it developed a pair of augmented reality glasses meant especially for commercial airlines’ pilots.

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NASA's AR Headset

The glasses holds a head-up display where the pilot can view the virtual layout of the airport’s runway, head tracking system and certain voice control features to communicate with the authorities. The device is actually the outcome of the NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia where the Aviation Safety Program germinated this totally new technology while researching for a better equipment to avoid major plane crashes.

Interestingly, the glasses can produce a clear picture of the outer environment of the plane in spite of the worst visual condition. To be specific, the glasses bring out a clear picture of the run away in real-time including graphic dots to indicate nearby traffic and runway. The included voice controls allows the pilot to keep track of the altitude, speed and direction right within the glass display without taking the pain to glare at the cockpit screen.

Presently, some of the military aircrafts use HUDs but they are merely built onto the cockpit. One advantage of using this glass is: it gives greater freedom to the pilot to move around; even the pilots reported that these glasses are quite comfortable to use.

Guess what? Implementing the entire system to work with the glasses would require minute changes in the cockpit design. Now, NASA is ready to provide the project to a company to manufacture the glasses and bring it to the market as soon as possible.

Have a look at the rendered image:

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